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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694
- Description:
- Development products faster, better and cheaper than competitors has become critical to success in many markets whether the products is an office building, software package, or computer chip. This has made the performance of product development projects an increasingly important area of competitive advantage. In response to these pressures many industries have shifted from a sequential, functional, development paradigm to a concurrent, team based paradigm. Increasing concurrence and cross functional development also dramatically increases the dynamics complexity of product development (Smith and Eppinger, 1995). But the mental models used by developers and managers to evaluate, estimate and mange projects have not generally improved to include dynamic influences on performance. The resulting lack of understanding (Diehl and Sterman, 1995; Sterman 1994; Paich and Sterman, 1993) and inadequate decision heuristics (Kleinmuntz, 1993) have contributed to the frequently cited management of development projects (Womack, Jones and Roos, 1990)
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8
- Description:
- People often fail in controlling complex dynamic situations. Research on dynamic decision making serves the purpose of learning about how people come to think, learn and act in complex dynamic and opaque situations, where the general objective is to draw general conclusions about the nature of task and differences between people in learning and decision making. Dynamic decision making research differ from traditional decision making research by explicitly addressing issues of feedback in the task. For a definition of dynamic decision making see Brehmer (1992). Introducing concepts from systems offer new possibilities for research on dynamic decision making by presenting a framework for understanding real life systems. Systems dynamics also offer a possibility to provide transparency to complex microworlds, provides ideas on how to improve learning in and about complex dynamics systems and, finally, systems dynamics methodology can be used to ease microworld construction and improve aspects of ecological validity. The full version of this paper deal in more detail with the research on dynamic decision making and issues on the development of methods for understanding learning and decision making in and about complex dynamic systems.
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694
- Description:
- Molecules are the building blocks from which good system dynamics models are built. By the delineating and organizing molecules we are creating a new body of knowledge that will make it easier to learn modeling and provide a vehicle for focused discourse on the nature and quality of model formulation. By implementing these ideas in software we make it faster and easier for novice and experienced modelers to develop high quality system dynamics models.
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694
- Description:
- With energy markets throughout the world moving rapidly into re-structuring, liberalisation and privatisation, this presents a major challenge to traditional modelling approaches. Econometric methods have limited applicability for a new environment and optimisation techniques of "planning" are less relevant in an era of market forces. This paper presents the use of system dynamics, in a generalised way, to provide a platform for integrated energy analysis. Issues of modularity and policy evolution are important in the design of the system to facilitate its use, and reuse. In the 18 months since this work began for the Colombian Ministry of Energy, it has had to evolve to support the analysis of a number of changing perspectives and constraints. Hence the concept of a platform rather than a model has to be implemented in a coherent way if it is going to provide sustained value for on-going governmental policy support.
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694
- Description:
- Imagine for a moment, that you're viewing act #n of a stage play. Thus, you know the outcome of the first (n-1) acts, and the very latest status of act #n, now in progress. From this information, you'd like to predict the outcome of the present act and, if possible, the outcome of the whole play. Metaphorically speaking, that is what this paper is all about.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8
- Description:
- The knowledge-based resources that a firm controls and leverages for competitive advantages are increasingly critical to success in the marketplace. However, the nature of these assets and their dynamic systems interactions are still poorly understood. This leads to undervaluation of their competitive worth, and even worse, counter-competitive management of the assets themselves. This presentation describes a system dynamics model, and resulting flight stimulator, which relate human and technical aspects of knowledge management with customer satisfaction and market penetration. The model was based on field-work with knowledge-management practitioners. The generic flight simulator provides decision makers with a low-risk dynamic practice field, where dialog, exploration of mental models, and organizational learning concerning knowledge concerning knowledge management are catalyzed. Although the simulator is not intended for prediction, participants do gain practical insight into important strategic and operational concerns, such as how can one know if a firm is leveraging its knowledge assets to best achieve long-term customer acceptance?
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- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8
- Description:
- A System Dynamics Model of a State Highway management System (HMS) is developed to serve as an instrument for guiding policy-making planning, budgeting, and programming for the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). The HMS consists of five subsystems and a Management Information System (MIS) to determine model parameter values. Results of the simulation runs can be obtained according to existing procedures and trends, impacts of alternative economics forecast, budget sizes, budget allocations, programming allocations between construction and maintenance, and various allocations within maintenance.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8
- Description:
- The concept of mental models has been central to the practice of system dynamics since its inception. When system dynamicists intervene in educational or corporate settings to help people become better systems thinkers, they typically begin by "surfacing" the participants' mental models to make assumptions explicit and to assist the model building process. And, changing mental models to make them more complete, consistent, and dynamic is typically one of the primary goals of the intervention. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the limitations of currently available techniques for eliciting, changing, and measuring changes in mental models of complex systems. In particular, when designing its techniques for studying mental models, the system dynamics community has not taken into account recent development in the fields of cognitive psychology and the procedures for collecting unbiased data from human subjects. In addition, despite the compelling need for rigorous scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of efforts to improve systems thinking (Cavaleri and Sterman, 1995; Ganter, Doyle, and Radzicki, 1995), current interventions typically fail to include rigorous follow-up measures of the changes in mental models they claim to bring about.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8
- Description:
- Each month a major telephone company receives 200, 000 calls from customers who have a problem with their telephone service. The company places a high emphasis on reducing the repair cost caused by high volume of complaints. Using a simulation model, the company wants to understand how more proactive maintenance can reduce the need for repair calls. The simulation model presented in this paper reveals that within a proactive maintenance we need to distinguish between at least 3 different policy levers: (1) Discover the problem before the customer notices it: (2) Do the repair with such a quality that you do not have to repair the problem twice.; (3) Make your physical plant more reliable. The stimulation model allows the company to allocate investments in each of the 3 areas and to test which investment mix fits the overall company objectives best.
-
- Type:
- Document
- Date Created:
- 1996
- Collection:
- System Dynamic Society Records
- Collecting Area:
- University Archives
- Collection ID:
- ua435
- Parent Record(s):
- 23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, ca4810593b2703dcaa087957ab13af91, and 227da936724c4223c5a64764d3922694